Balance of Trade – Chapter 24

Day 139
Standard Year 1118

Irikwae

In which Jethri is here to learn trade and mountains.

It’s interesting that Norn ven’Deelin speaks of this as “coming home”, and makes one wonder how she would characterize returning to the house of her own clan on Liad.

Meicha and Miandra have something going on: they’re able to pick Jethri’s emotions out of his head – but perhaps not yet able to not do it, given their reactions when Jethri starts panicking (and I wonder if Ren Lar was picking up on that when he suggested it was time to end the meal). “Healer Hall has taken an interest in them”. The Delm is firm that they are not, however, dramliz – but something about the way it’s said makes me wonder if that’s an objective judgement or if there’s a stigma being carefully avoided. (Also, I wonder what it is that tips Norn ven’Deelin off about them.)

The subject of Liadens considering it impolite to mop one’s face in public is one that we will return to in more detail at a later date.

I wonder if Flinx is named (not by the characters, obviously, but perhaps by the authors) after the protagonist of Alan Dean Foster’s series of young adult novels; I can see some similarities between that Flinx and our Jethri.

Master ven’Deelin’s mention of Korval in the parlor is the first time they’ve been mentioned since Crystal Dragon (and if memory serves it will be some time again before they’re next mentioned).

Jethri’s assessment of the parlor as “smallish – maybe the size of Master ven’Deelin’s office on Elthoria” shows that he’s made some adjustments in the time since he first saw that office: back then, he was struck by how large it was.

Incidentally, it’s been nearly exactly a relumma since then, which means that in depositing Jethri on Irikwae for two relumma, Master ven’Deelin is proposing that they will be apart for almost twice as long as the entire time they’ve known each other. I can see that being worrying even without the addition of a Spacer’s horror of being left stranded.

I have a feeling that when Master ven’Deelin remarks on how careful Jethri is of her honor, she’s very gently pulling his leg. He does genuinely want to avoid doing her disservice, and I’m sure she genuinely appreciates it, but she only really makes a point of it when he’s trying to invoke a desire to avoid shaming her to get out of doing something without straight out saying he doesn’t want to do it.

Which, as I said, doesn’t mean that they don’t genuinely care about each other, and I love the scenes in this chapter which show that care.

4 thoughts on “Balance of Trade – Chapter 24

  1. Ed8r

    Flinx’s eyes are described in third person by Jethri, as “pale green—rather like two large oval-shaped peridot.” So here is another gem mentioned. In our world, a precious stone, the crystal form of the mineral olivine. In its purest form, it can be a what we’d call “emerald green,” and in fact was sometimes mistaken for emerald. However, a cat’s green eyes usually have a bit of yellow in them, making them closer to “peridot” than “emerald” green.

  2. Ed8r

    Forgot I wanted to address this also: A ruby the size of a cargo can lug nut hung about her neck on a silver chain.

    This world apparently puts a lower value on rubies than on amethysts, at least that’s how I’d interpret it. Of course we don’t really know what size is a “cargo can lug nut,” but it implies a larger size than Jethri would have expected to see. If Meicha and Miandra can wear so casually (and apparently merely as a focus for their apprentice-level healing abilities) rubies of this size, either the gems are worth much less and/or these are synthetically created gems. The fact that one melts from the power focused through it, might indicate the latter.

  3. Ed8r

    Paul said: Jethri’s assessment of the parlor as “smallish – maybe the size of Master ven’Deelin’s office on Elthoria” shows that he’s made some adjustments in the time since he first saw that office: back then, he was struck by how large it was.

    He found it large for a room on a ship. But what’s strange about this is that as far as we know he really has *no* reference point at all to judge the size of the parlor. We took it at face value, but think again: we have heard nothing about Jethri ever visiting a personal home on a planet, he’s barely ever been on a planet at all! So then, how would he have any idea about the size of rooms he would see in someone’s house?

  4. Ed8r

    Also in this chapter, we have Norn swearing on the name of her clan, and Jethri recognizing that this was a thing “not lightly done” (an understatement, I’d say). But then Jethri goes on to think: her own name was more precious than rubies.

    Well . . . why rubies here? If we look at the progression of stones in the Trader’s Ring, rubies come *before* amethysts, suggesting that rubies at this time or in this culture were not as rare as amethysts for some reason. But if so, then for Jethri to compare the value of the ven’Deelin name only as more precious than rubies, does not mean as much as it’s intended to. (Personally, I think the authors got caught up in using an allusion to a familiar verse from the Bible: “For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.”)

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